The protests and violence in Egypt, Libya and Yemen have caused a notable uptick in media discussions about, as Newsweek‘s cover puts it, “Muslim Rage.”
A Washington Post headline illustrates which lives are more valuable.
Part of the corporate media’s job is to make sure real political grievances are mostly kept out of the discussion. It’s a lot easier to talk about angry mobs and their peculiar religion than it is to acknowledge that maybe some of the anger has little to do with religion at all.
Take the news out of Afghanistan yesterday: A NATO airstrike killed eight women in the eastern province of Laghman who were out collecting firewood. This has happened before. And attacks that kill a lot of Afghans–whether accidental or not–tend to be covered the same way–quietly, and with a focus not on the killing but on the ramifications.
So yesterday if you logged into CommonDreams, you may have seen this headline:
NATO Airstrike in Afghanistan Kills 8 Women
Now look for the same news in the New York Times today (9/17/12). It’s there–but the headline is this:
Karzai Denounces Coalition Over Airstrikes
The Times gave a clear sense of what was important: “Mr. Karzai’s condemnation was likely to rankle some Western officials…” the paper’s Matthew Rosenberg explained, who went on to explain that
the confrontational tone of the statement was a sharp reminder of the acrimony that has often characterized relations between Mr. Karzai and his American benefactors.
In the Washington Post, the NATO airstrikes made the front page–sort of. Readers saw this headline at the website:
4 troops killed in southern Afghanistan insider attack
As you might have already guessed, the killings of Afghan women are a secondary news event:
Four U.S. troops were killed Sunday at a remote checkpoint in southern Afghanistan when a member of the Afghan security forces opened fire on them, military officials said. The attack brought to 51 the number of international troops shot dead by their Afghan partners this year. The insider attack came on the same day that NATO warplanes killed nine women gathering firewood in the mountains outside their village in an eastern province, according to local officials.
One has to wonder whether, absent the deaths of U.S. troops, the airstrike would have made the news at all.
I think this LA Times headline makes plain the POV here:
NATO Force Suffers Catastrophes
You kill nine innocents, and *you* “suffer”.
It’s the flip side of blaming the victim.
Sympathy for the perpetrator.
@ Doug, this is also known Psy-ops or in the civilian world “Black/white”. Of course your familiar with this, since you have been around while and seen it for what it is.
Had there no been a convenient “military death” to put up front, they would have some other ‘terrorist action’ that would have then made it the fault of the terrorists, even if they were in China
Remember: My Troops are Freedom Fighters and Liberators; yours are “Terrorists and Oppressors”. My troops only fight terrorists and oppressors; yours attack my freedom fighter and stop us from liberating….
The media mourns all of the “progress” made by Obama, now negated by the revelation of the truly racist sentiments of a significant portion of Americans.
The only ones who were fooled by this “progress” were the Americans who, in their ersatz patriotic orientation, chose not to see what transpired in the media’s blind spot. The dead, however, will always remain evident to those who loved them.
The camel’s back is broken; of what terrible weight must that last straw have been!
A dead US Diplomat is a ‘tragedy’ or an ‘outrage’. 8 dead Afghan women and girls is a statistic. Thanks, America.
It’s sad how the “local officials” always get denounced when this happens, first NATO says no, then usually a week later WE say “oh yea I guess it happened sorry it wasn’t on purpose, gotta go bomb more groups of 40 who must all be “militants”… The same cycle for years…
In my youth, all dead civilians were known to be Viet Cong, and were counted as such.
How can we be sure that we are not finding more Viet Cong in the Middle East, that the domino theory has not been proven, at long last, to be true?
These dead “Cong” can only mean one thing: onward to China for more slaughter in the name of democracy, that aspirational social institution that can never exist until all of its possible enemies are dead.
All hail to the Unitary State of Annexia, and its Unitary Executive!
Most Americans (including African Americans) are racist. How else would they put up with what the US (illegally) does to little dark people half way across the world? Democrats support Obama and his team of war criminals for supporting the LGBTQ and women’s rights. But the rights of those little dark women and homosexuals half-way across the world do not count. The rights of those women, children and gays in Iran who are being sanctioned to death (the same way 1.5 million Iraqis were subtly murdered) do not count. Kudos to the ability of “liberals” and “progressives” who can maneuver their subconscious out of that bit of cognitive dissonance!
@View Our Website: “Kind of off-topic?” Try something called “Google” or just go to a library and check stuff out. It’s free! There ya go, now get busy!
I think you’re gonna harsh the buzz of a lot of folks with that kind of blunt talk, FreeSpirit. I’d also say those Iraqis we murdered weren’t done in too “subtly.”
Voting for the two major candidates who are continuing or promising to continue endless war is making you, the voter, an accessory to this murder (plus all the many others). Obviously “they hate us” because we have their families’ blood on our hands (and those “pundits” are pun-ditzy). There are a rare few peaceful candidates and a vote for them is not a wasted vote, regardless of who garners the presidency, because your conscience will tell you that YOU took the moral high road!
?? Whosawhatsit-what it?????